Saint Joseph Catholic Church

“Both expressed their deep concern for peace, a topic dear to the pope’s heart, as well as for all the innocent victims of armed conflict across the world,” according to a Taizé statement. “They also shared a common desire to go further along the road to reconciliation among Christians, while reflecting on ways to transmit the faith to the younger generations.”

The Taizé Community, an ecumenical French monastic community, was founded by Brother Roger Schütz in 1940. Its annual year-end gatherings attract tens of thousands of young adults.

Pope Leo XIV received participants in the Focolare Movement‘s general assembly and praised the movement for its charism of unity and peace.

The Vatican newspaper warned that “globally, a threshold of natural resource exploitation has now been crossed—one sufficient to trigger ‘a global water bankruptcy.’“

“That incident, coupled with Donald Trump’s words, has greatly inflamed the passions of the Islamists,” Archbishop Ignatius Ayau Kaigama said during a briefing in Madrid. “The number of attacks, the number of kidnappings carried out by Boko Haram and other groups, has been rising ever since.”

“So we say to Donald Trump: give us intelligence reports, give us weapons, collaborate with our government, and then find a way to eradicate all these military groups,” Archbishop Kaigama added.

At the conclusion of his midday Angelus address today, Pope Leo XIV renewed his appeal for peace in the Middle East.

Pope Leo XIV reflected on the raising of Lazarus, recounted in the Gospel reading of the Fifth Sunday of Lent (John 11:1-45), as he addressed pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for today’s midday Angelus address (video).